Dead Before Coffee

You become a zombie gradually. First it's just the tiredness—the bone-deep exhaustion that makes fluorescent lights feel like needles. Then the spreadsheet cells start blurring together, and you realize you haven't felt anything real in three weeks. That's when you know: whatever made you human has been hollowed out by quarterly reports and meetings that could have been emails.

Sarah noticed first. She'd been my work friend for two years—the kind of friend who brings you coffee when your divorce papers finally arrive, who pretends not to notice when you cry in the supply closet. "You're not yourself," she said one morning, her voice gentle. "You're not anyone, actually."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell her about the apartment I barely recognized anymore, the sheets I hadn't washed in a month, the voicemails from my mother I kept skipping. But zombie-me didn't have the energy for honest conversations.

Then came the dog.

I found him behind the dumpster during a smoke break I didn't even smoke. A mangy golden mix, ribs showing, one ear permanently folded. He looked at me with eyes that held more life than I'd felt in months. Something cracked open in my chest—a sensation so foreign I almost flinched.

I brought him inside. Security didn't care. Nobody cared about anything anymore.

The dog—Barnaby—lived under my desk. He chewed on cables. He smelled like wet wool and rejection. And somehow, he made me feel like I could remember who I used to be.

Sarah started joining us during lunch. We'd sit on the floor of my cubicle, sharing sandwiches while Barnaby thumped his tail against the partition. "He knows," she said once, scratching behind his ears. "Dogs always know when someone's coming back to life."

That was the day I finally cried. Real tears, not the numb leaking I'd been doing for months. Barnaby pressed his warm side against me, solid and alive, and Sarah didn't pretend not to notice this time.

"I think I was dead," I said. "I think I've been dead since January."

"You're not dead," she said, and her hand found mine. "You were just... hibernating."

Barnaby licked my face, his tongue rough and perfect, and for the first time in forever, I felt hungry. For food. For touch. For anything that wasn't this gray, walking-dead existence I'd been accepting as normal.

The zombie doesn't win, I realized. It just makes you think you're already gone so you won't fight to stay.